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One of the more contentious issues within theology is the tension that exists between God's predestination of the saints and the individual's ability to freely choose to follow Jesus. The Bible recognizes both, and there have been many arguments as to how to reconcile these views. Some have suggested that man doesn't really have free will, but that God controls all aspects and choices of every life. However, there are problems with this position, most notably how it reduces human beings to puppets and makes God responsible for evil. Others believe that man has absolute freedom apart from God, but this view also presents difficulties. Some include the issue of God not being able to foresee the future or being a part of time as we know it. It also in no way answers the biblical fact that man is predestined by God.
It's easy to see why this debate has raged on for hundreds of years! Choosing to emphasize one side seems to contradict the other. However, there is another position that I feel more completely explains both God's predestination and man's libertarian freedom by showing both can be true and not in competition with one another. It is a theory first put forth by a Spanish monk named Luis de Molina in the 16th century called "middle knowledge" or Molinism. We'll base our outline on William Lane Craig's understanding of the doctrine found in his book "The Only Wise God".
GOD KNOWS THE WORLD AS IT ACTUALLY IS
Craig explains that God holds different kinds of knowledge. God has what is termed necessary knowledge. This is knowledge that can never be false. It encompasses things like the laws of logic and the idea that 2+2=4. God also has free knowledge. Free knowledge is knowing creation as it actually is, including the past, present and future. Another way to state this is free knowledge is how God actually chooses to make the world. God was free to make any kind of world he desired (thus the "free" designation) and he chooses to make this specific world with all the events that go along with it.
The difference between free knowledge and necessary knowledge, though, is that "God could lack [specific free] knowledge and still be God. He must have this "sort" of knowledge to be God, but its content would be different. For if he would have created a different world, his free knowledge would be different." 1
Examples of God's free knowledge may be found in Isaiah 45, where God speaks directly to Cyrus, the conqueror of Babylon 150 years before he was born. Craig also offers other examples of free knowledge. "God's knowledge seems to encompass future contingencies: God foreknows Nebuchadnezzer's divinations to determine his battle routes (Ezek. 21:21-23). Even more remarkably, just as God knows the thoughts that humans have, so he foreknows the very thoughts they will have."2 Psalm 139 also supports this idea.
So God knows all of the events of human history, past present and future. This includes every detail of the universe - the thoughts that we think, how lots will be cast, when cocks will crow, everything. God knows this to be true because it exists in reality. If reality were different, though, God's knowledge would be different. God only knows the truth to be true.
GOD KNOWS ALL POSSIBILITIES
Not only does God know exactly how the world really is, He also knows the way the world would be if events were different. A favorite example of may own is in Acts 27:21-32 where Paul is aboard a ship to Rome and a great storm arises. The ship's crew were terrified for their lives, but Paul delivers a prophecy given by God saying "there will be no loss of life among you, but only of the ship" (v. 23). However, some of the sailors still sought to escape by lowering the life boat. Paul then warns them that "unless these men stay in the ship, you cannot be saved" (v. 31). Paul knew that all aboard would be saved. But if events were different, he knew that the outcome would be different and the prophecy would be false.
Craig offers 1 Samuel 23:6-13 as another example. He writes "the story was understood to show that God knew that if David "were" to remain at Keilah, then Saul "would" come to get him, and that if Saul "were" to come to get David, then the men of the city "would" hand him over."3
In either case, we have different outcomes for the same event if the choices of the individual involved were to be different. God knew both outcomes, yet he also know which choice the individuals would freely make. Thus God created a particular situation to achieve a particular end (delivering Paul to Rome or sparing David from Saul), not by controlling the choices of those involved, but by knowing which choices they would make when faced with that situation.
MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE
The idea that God knows what would happen in any situation were that situation different is termed MIDDLE KNOWLEDGE. Adherents to middle knowledge hold that God not only knows what IS, but He knows what would be IF something were different.
This is the key to solving the predestination and free will problem. God knows all aspects of every possible world he could create. It's part of his natural knowledge and is essential to him. His middle knowledge consists of "what every possible free creature would do under any possible set of circumstances and, hence, knowledge of those possible worlds which God could make actual."4 God then freely decides to create the actual world in which we live and knows every detail, past, present, and future, of how that world will be.
The ramifications of this idea go far and deep. God doesn't just "look ahead" into the future and predestine someone he knew would choose him. He decides to create a world in which that person will actually exists to choose him, knowing that he will choose that way given those circumstances. He personally decides to give life to everyone and every event in our world after looking at all possibilities and scenarios, in order to suit his purposes! It's a much bigger picture of God that still maintains the reality that our choices are freely made and significant.
Using the concept of middle knowledge, we can see how God can predestine each one of us to a saving grace in Him while at the same time preserving the idea of human freedom to choose. God loves you enough that his entire creation is ordered so you would choose to follow him. It's pretty amazing to think about.
REFERENCES
1.Craig, William Lane "The Only Wise God"
Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Pub., 1999. 127-128.
2. Ibid. 32
3. Ibid. 132
4. Ibid. 131.
Reviewing her recent book, "The Case for God", Ross Douthat explains why Karen Armstrong's version of Christianity really won't do:
.... The casual reader...would be forgiven for thinking that the leading lights of premodern Christianity were essentially liberal Episcopalians "avant la lettre".
In reality, these Christian sages were fiercely dogmatic by any modern standard. They were not fundamentalists, reading every line of Scripture literally, and they were, as Armstrong says, "inventive, fearless and confident in their interpretation of faith." But their inventiveness was grounded in shared doctrines and constrained by shared assumptions. Their theology was reticent in its claims about the ultimate nature of God but very specific about how God had revealed himself on earth. It's true that Augustine, for instance, did not interpret the early books of Genesis literally. But he certainly endorsed a literal reading of Jesus' resurrection - and he wouldn't have been much of a Christian theologian if he hadn't.....
This explains why liberal religion tends to be parasitic on more dogmatic forms of faith, which create and sustain the practices that the liberal believer picks and chooses from, reads symbolically and reinterprets for a more enlightened age. Such spiritual dilettant-ism has its charms, but it lacks the sturdy appeal of Western monotheism, which has always offered not only myth and ritual and symbolism (the pagans had those bases covered), but also scandalously literal claims - that the Jews really are God's chosen people; that Christ really did rise from the dead; and that however much the author of the universe may surpass our understanding, we can live in hope that he loves the world enough to save it, and us, from the annihilating power of death.
Such literalism can be taken too far, and "The Case for God" argues, convincingly, that it needs to coexist with more mythic, mystic and philosophical forms of faith. Most people, though, are not mystics and philosophers, and they are hungry for myths that are not only resonant but true. Apophatic religion may be the most rigorous way to go in search of an elusive God. But for most believers, it will remain a poor substitute for the idea that God has come in search of us.Book Review - 'The Case for God,' by Karen Armstrong - Review - NYTimes.com
PREACHING IN HITLER'S SHADOW: SERMONS OF RESISTANCE IN THE THIRD REICH. Edited by Dean G. Stoud. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2013. Xii + 203 pages.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer has been rightly honored for his stand against the Nazi tyranny of the 1930s and 1940s. Because of his execution at the end of the war, together with his vast collection of writings, including his "Letters and Papers from Prison, "we honor him as a martyr. But as important as his witness was, he was not alone in standing against Hitler's grotesque campaign that included an attempt to subvert the Christian heritage of Germany. We know may know a few other names, including Karl Barth and Martin Niemoller, who played significant roles in the resistance to Hitler, but many others joined them in responding to this challenge. In "Preaching in Hitler's Shadow", we are introduced to some of these preachers. Bonhoeffer, Barth and Niemoller are included, but others, some well known, and others whose names have largely been forgotten appear as well.
This collection of sermons from the 1930s and 1940s is edited and introduced by Dean Stroud, professor emeritus of German studies at the University of Wisconsin, LaCrosse. He is also a former Presbyterian pastor who has had a long interest in sermons of resistance to Hitler's program in Germany. Stroud notes that he hoped to find sermons that directly denounced Hitler. He went on this journey with a question in mind - what should the church do in a situation like this? He found some who spoke directly, and they often ended up arrested, beaten, or dead. In the course of his explorations, he discovered that the responses came in a wide variety of forms. Some were subtle, but still offering a strong response to the encroachment of an alien ideology that sought to co-opt or destroy the church of Jesus Christ. While Stroud doesn't include pro-Nazi sermons, he does detail the ideology and actions that drew a response from these preachers.
Why would we want to read these sermons? Stroud offers these sermons up as expressions of resistance to evil tyranny, sharing the gospel in the face of an ideology that stood in complete opposition to it. This is important because Hitler sought to use God - and allegiance of the majority of the German people to the Christian faith. He sought to take the religion of the majority and turn it into a militant and nationalistic ideology that would benefit his purposes. Indeed, prior to his election as Chancellor, he proclaimed himself a protector of the Christian faith. The form of Christianity that he sought to offer was known as "positive Christianity." This form of Christianity was a racial religion. Stroud writes that "it is, therefore, essential to notice how the preachers treat race - either directly by mentioning it or indirectly by intentionally ignoring it. It is vital to note how the sermons refer to Jews, Judaism, and the Old Testament" (p. 7). If the Nazi interpretation of Christianity is seen as positive, then according to Stroud, "every sermon in the second part of this book is an illustration of negative Christianity at its best" (p. 7). Since preaching negatively - that is casting in doubt Nazi ideology - could land you in jail or worse, most of these preachers suffered for their preaching.
In order to prepare the reader for the sermons, Stroud offers an outline of this Nazi ideology. Therefore, we learn of the insistence that Hitler was Messiah and that the Volk (the German people) were chosen of God. With their racialist world-view the Nazi's saw the German people engaged in a life and death struggle for supremacy. If life is a battle then there is no room for compassion or empathy. Anything that would detract from the advancement of the superior German race needed to be eliminated. Thus, the Jews were targeted. Christianity as a faith, because it is seen as weak and hostile to Nazi goals would have to be dealt with accordingly. In order to subvert Christianity Jesus had to be reclaimed as an Aryan - anything Jewish about him scrubbed off. This meant that sermons that affirmed the Jewishness of Jesus subverted this ideology. Jews weren't the only persons targeted. Anyone seen as being weak was liable to be eliminated - especially persons who were mentally ill or physically challenged. Several sermons in the collection address "Aktion T4," which was an effort to eliminate anyone deemed useless to German society. This policy brought about significant reaction, including from Pope Pius XII. Added to these pieces one must acknowledge the creation of the German Christian Movement, an attempt to mold Christianity in Nazi form. Interestingly it was largely a failure. They attempted to control the churches, but the majority embraced the Confessing Church. In response to these attempts at control Martin Niemoller formed the Pastor's Emergency League as a means of protesting. Karl Barth led the effort to create the Confessing Church, even writing the Barmen Confession - before he was forced to leave the country. As one reads through the sermons, Stroud wants us to pay attention to the Christocentric focus, because this focus is central to the resistance to the messianic claims of Adolph Hitler. The Kingdom of God, which Christ brings into existence, stands in contrast to Hitler's Reich. Preaching the Gospel, therefore, became a form of resistance to an ungodly ideology. Stroud includes twelve sermons in this collection, introducing each one by placing it in context and introducing us to the preacher. Besides the sermons by Barth, Bonhoeffer, and Niemoller, one should pay attention to the sermons preached by Paul Schneider, the first pastor to be executed for his opposition to Hitler's regime. One will want to attend to Helmut Gollwitzer's sermon about "Kristallnacht, "as well. Gollwitzer was a student of Barth and successor to Niemoller after Niemoller was imprisoned. There is an important sermon by Catholic Bishop Clemens August von Galen responding to the "Aktion T4," for it speaks to the preciousness of life.
I am greatly appreciative of Stroud for including the sermon by Rudolph Bultmann. We don't usually think of Bultmann as a preacher nor as an opponent of the Nazi regime. Yet his "Sermon about the Parable of the Great Banquet" is a powerful statement of support for the Gospel. Bultmann bemoans the decline of religion in Germany. He asks: What has come of the Christian instruction given to our youth? Who feels bound today by Christian morality? We all know that Germany today no longer is a Christian country, that church life is only a remnant, and that many wish and hope that even this remnant will disappear" (p. 149). Is this a word that we would expect to hear from the scholar who sought to "demythologize Christianity"? Perhaps this sermon will cause us to rethink our view of Bultmann. Again, hear Bultmann's call for an active faith.
Rather the Christian faith is an attitude of the will. It is only alive in us when it continually proves itself in new ways. It does not suffice to have decided for faith in God once in the past, but rather this decision for faith as to be implemented anew time and time again whenever he encounters us, when his call meets us. (p. 153).
This book edited by Dean Stroud is a much needed complement to several other recent books that invites us to consider the role of preaching during the Nazi era. There is the Isabel Best's "The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer "(Fortress, 2012) and Angela Dienhart Hancock's "Karl Barth's Emergency Homiletic 1932-1933 "(Eerdmans, 2013). What these books do is give us a fuller picture of how some in the church responded to this threat to Christianity and to humanity as a whole. What Stroud has done here is broaden our knowledge of who was preaching and the effect of that preaching. We should be thankful for this gift; for I believe it will help empower preachers of today to take more seriously their task.
Reference: practicing-wicca.blogspot.com
